Bethany Hamilton Finished Third In The Fiji Women’s Pro

Give the girl a hand!

 

You got that right!!

 

Pretty impressive. Her snaps are better than most of the WSL men.

 

Most dudes don't have a snap.......

 

I immediately edited it to "WSL men" but you were on me faster than a barracuda.

 

You should see my teeth!!

 

she surfs better than me..but again I didn't grow up in Hawaii,i do have both arms tho so il just be the kook.pretty crazy her and Alana Blanchard been friends since forever,i remember seeing them on tv when they were like 8(that's why I will never find Alana attractive)(jailbait)....anyway Alana sucks and is a sex symbol and Bethany actually surfs,only a few girls on tour that can actually surf and I can count them with 1 hand

 

She is an amazing athlete. I don't know how she paddles out and pops up with one arm!

 

I was was just thinking about this last night. The fact that she surfs the waves she does with one arm is super impressive. Obviously.

But this is what I was thinking about. Let's forget she only has one arm for a second. Is her surfing still impressive? I think so. But compared to other pros, what do you guys think? I still think so. Then I got to thinking, forget the paddling and the pop up and all that. That's obviously difficult with one arm. But what about her turns, the way a surfer torques there body to maneuver a board. How greatly does having one arm effect her ability to perform those turns. Quite a bit I'd think, although maybe not as much as if it was her leading arm missing.

I think if you look at her surfing compared to her peers, and put the missing arm out of your head for a minute, she's pretty good. Not the best. Dosn't blow everyone else away. But she hangs with the best of them. If she never lost an arm, would she be the female Kelly? Or would she be the same surfer she is now? I know a bunch of random open ended what if type of questions. That's just what was going through my head last night as I watched a random heat of hers.

 

Im a 26 year old athletic male.

Shes a one armed female.





Guess she likes surfing more than I do.

 

Exactly--it is hard enough sometimes with both arms intact....

 

This event was the first time that I could actually watch entire heats, for the women's events. Because watching the women surf was, pardon me, boring. So boring. Now? It's as if the ability & the talent level has gone into exponential overdrive since last year.

Hamilton laid down serious hacks & her turns were power-central.

BTW, interesting that the bigger, stockier girls on the WSL tend to do mo' bettah' than the honeypots like Blanchard, whereas the bigger guys on the WSL don't do so well. Not a hard & fast rule. Observation. Any guy on the WSL over 6'0 tends to not finish top-5, with a couple of exceptions. Hamilton is 5'11. Moore not tall but built like a linebacker. Sally Fitz is waif-like & rips but struggles to keep up & hasn't won many events.

Anyways....random thoughts...

 

She's an inspiration for sure. To come back from that at such a young age too...
The fact that she even survived the attack is pretty amazing. If you have surfed Tunnels you know how remote this area is. I can't imagine being out there at 12 years old I think and having your arm severed clean off. Her family is very Christian and she attributes all of her success to God.
However, being born and raised in a surf family in the north shore of Kauai, I am not surprised at all she is a great surfer. If she wasn't a good surfer I would be surprised.
Still, how she surfs that well with one arm, especially the paddling part, astounds me.

 

stoked for her!

 

It's amazing how does she paddle so well. I figured when she lost her arm she did get a lot of exposure and support to get back out there, so I donno how much did her surfing career really stall out (once she recovered).
Undoubtedly she was going places on the surfboard, shark or not.

 

I wounder if she would ever consider using a prosthetic while surfing. Not for paddling or popping up, but as counterbalance while hacking a turn.

The only tricky part would be getting the prosthetic to know what position to be in and when. Maybe some sort of thing that interpolates the motion of her good arm into a message telling the prosthetic what to do.

 

Ive surfed with one arm on my longboard when i broke my hand a few times and my sb didnt work at all. So i mean it sucked bad paddling with one arm and trying to stand it can be done but fk that.